InternationalJournalfor the Semioticsof Law VoI.X no.

28 [1997]

POSTMODERN SEMIOTICS

by
ROSHAN DE SILVAWIJEYERATNE
UniversityofKent at Canterbury

Review of M. Gottdiener, Postmodern Semiotics. Material Culture and

the Forms of Postmodern Life, BlackweU, 1995, ISBN 0-631-19215-8,
262pp.

This book re-historicises the postmodern through socio-semiotics. I

consider the potentially unsustainable paradox of this position towards
the end of this review. The underlying theme is not only a critique of
classical semiotics, but also of those accounts of the postmodern inspired
by Baudrillard in which all that survives the death of the object is the
media driven world of hyperreality, a world dominated by the sign value
of the image. In this universe, as Baudrillard ceaselesslyreminds us, the
use and exchange value of the object has being subordinated to the
domination of the image.
Gottdiener's central argument is that "even if the present is
postmodern, in the sense that the interplay of sign value dominates
cultural logic, it nevertheless still depends on the deployment of material
objects within the subcultural context of everyday life. That is, sign
value, or the status of objects as expressive symbols, remains linked to
both the status of objects as possessing use value in daily practice and
exchange value in the exo-semiotic system of capitalist accumulation"
(p.48).
Gottdiener's objective is to counter the fatalistic vision of
Baudrillard's where all forms of cultural life are reduced to the hyperreal.
In doing so, the author briefly engages with two recent Marxist
inspired accounts of the postmodern by Jameson and Harvey for whom
the term "postmodern" constitutes the commodification of cultural
production intrinsic to the post-Fordist stage of late capitalism and the
attempt by capitalism to militate against the crisis of over-accumulation
through the transformation in processes of cultural production and
106 ROSHANDE SILVAWIJEYERATNE

patterns of consumerism. I The author rejects the reductionist and

totalising account of the postmodern by both Jameson and Harvey in
which cultural production is subordinated to the functional logic of late
capitalism, on the grounds that both accounts lack "an adequate
periodisation of changes in the logic of consumer culture" (p.142).
Socio-semiotics becomes a model that offers an adequate periodisation of
the history of consumer culture. Given Lyotard's insistence that
"postmodernity is not a new age, but the rewriting of some of the
features claimed by modernity", 2 Gottdiener's claim remains
problematic.
In Part One the author establishes his theoretical argument. We are
lucidly led through the competing perspectives in semiotics.
The origins of semiotics(the study of systems of signification as
opposed to the study of language as a system of communication) is
traced to the structural linguistics of Saussure. Saussure established that
meaning in language is established through the unified opposition of
signifier and signified, and that meaning is articulated at two levels, the
syntagmatic axis and the paradigmatic axis. On the one hand meaning
occurs through the unfolding of words (diachronically); that is a word
conveys meaning in the context of its relation to other words (i.e. the
syntagmatic axis), and this articulation of meaning through the
juxtaposition of words occurs through the play of metonomy. On the
other hand the paradigmatic axis is dependent on the choice of words
from a group of associated words. Gottdiener gives the example of
"boy" which implies the existence of absent words such as "male" or
"youth" for example. These absent, but associated words constitute the
paradigmatic axis of meaning. Also, because the meaning of words is
partly constituted by the relation to what is both present and absent, that
is ~by what each word calls forth according to its associations" (p.6),
meaning in this axis occurs through the synchronic (fixed in time) play
of metaphor. Meaning is constituted in the inter-relation between the
syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes. Summing up the central insight of
structural linguistics, Gottdiener observes that "what is juxtaposed word

1 F. Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

(London: Verso, 1992); D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford:
BlackwellPublishers, 1989).
2 J.-F. Lyotard, "Rewriting Modernity", in J.-F. Lyotard, The Inhuman;
Reflections on Time (Cambridge:Polity Press, 1991), 34, translated by Geoffrey
Benningtonand RachelBowlby.
 BOOKREVIEW:POSTMODERNSEMIOTICS 107

for word and what is chosen and what is not chosen, or deferred and
associated, is defined by difference" (p.7).
Signs do not have meaning in and of themselves as positive terms,
but rather establish their meaning within the systematic play of
difference.
The author emphasises how semiotics borrows this model of the sign
in order to articulate the perspective that any cultural phenomenon
constitutes a system of signification "because they are structured
according to the relations and contrasts of both the syntagmatic and
paradigmatic axes" (p.7). But it is to Peirce and Barthes that the author
turns to in order to identify the origins of socio-semiorics.
Unlike Saussure, Peirce maintained the possibility of establishing a
relation between language and the objective world. For Peirce, although
the sign is in a state of infinite regress, in the sense that "meaning is
always deferred, always becoming through contrast between sign and
sign (its interpretant)" (p.11), behind this series of interpretants there
always exists the object. But because the interpretant for Peirce, which is
analogous to Saussure's signified, constitutes a cognitive mental process,
the "objective world is not a direct part of the sign" (p.10). As
Gottdiener argues "with regard to Peirce, the objective world lies in the
background and semiosis consists of the cognitive relation between the
representem which is very much like the signifier, and the interpretant,
or Saussure's signified" (p. 11). It is this emphasis on the presence of the
material world that constitutes for Gottdiener a central aspect of socio-
semiotics.
Barthes radicalises Saussure's reading of the sign by identifying that
the sign is articulated at two levels, the denotative and the connotative.
The sign denotes a particular object, but the sign can also refer to
culturally determined connotations. This model of second order
representations, Gottdiener argues, is central to socio-semiotics because
of its emphasis on processes of cultural signification. Hence for example
the word "axe" denotes a tool for cutting wood, hut the axe also signifies
"the myth of modernity with all its connotations to industrialisation,
wealth, or privilege ..." (p.16).
It is this reliance on Peirce and Barthes that grounds the author's
critique of"Baudrillard's symbolic reductionism" (p.25).
Socio-semiotics takes as its perspective the "the articulation between
sign-systems and exo-semiotic processes of politics and economics ..."
(p.25), and following Peirce it maintains the presence of an objective
108 ROSHANDE SILVAWIJEYERATNE

referent. As Gottdiener argues "both the produced object world itself

and our understanding of it derives from codified ideologies that are
aspects of social practise and their socialisation processes" (p.25). The
social constrains the play of sign value. The object is not only a sign in a
system of signification, but also possesses use-value dependent on its
socio-economic context. The sign is therefore articulated within the
material world, its value being inseparable from its interaction with
material processes.
Socio-semiotics is synonymous with a materialist semiotics in which
the meaning of the object is constituted on the one hand in the
interaction between socio-economic context and the codes of social
practise and on the other hand with the design and production practises
which produce the object. Following Peirce, socio-semiotics juxtaposes
the relation between the material environment as a system of
signification with an analysis of the "cognitive 'reading' of that
environment in the constitution of action and the interacting subject"
(p.69).
Having outlined his theoretical approach, the author then sets out to
validate it in an empiricist account. Part Two applies the socio-semiotic
approach to a variety of cultural phenomena such as the shopping mall,
Disneyland, architecture, and the marketing of housing in California.
Part Three follows this model by relating it to the manifestation of mass
culture in a multi-ethnic high school in California, the growth of unisex
fashion and its relation to gender role change, and finally the subcultures
of pop music, with particular emphasis on punk in Britain during the
1970's. His approach emphasises the constitution of meaning in the
relation between the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes.
In relation to the mall, the author emphasises that the latter is a sign
in itself, "since it connotes something other than its principal
instrumental function" (p.86), the realisation of capital. As a sign the
mall connotes the simulation of consumer fantasies in a manner that
"designers have chosen as the overarching associational image they hope
will hide its instrumental nature" (p.86). It is this associational or
paradigmatic axis of meaning that "creates a short circuit between the
fantasies and representational appeals to consumption within the mall
space itself" (p.87). Therefore, malls with unifying motifs such as "Olde
Towne" (a fantasy of nineteenth century Americana)thrive on the
simulation of referents long since gone.
On the other hand, Gottdiener argues that "the syntagmatic
 BOOKREVIEW:POSTMODERNSEMIOTICS 109

dimension involves the engineering of space within the mall form and
piecing together of appearance alternatives for store front facades"
(p.89). As with inter-mall design, the purpose of intra-mall design is
similarly to facilitate the realisation of capital. The ensemble of the mall
"captures a charged urban ambience which draws shoppers to pause, to
see, and to be seen" (p.91). Intrinsic to this process is the capacity of the
mall to reproduce the old town square of the European Rennaissance
with dock towers and chimes.
With reference to the shops inside the malt, the author informs us
that the market share of the smaller shops depends on the draw of the
larger stores and the ease with which the floor plan facilitates the
movement of shoppers. Pathways are broken up by obstacles, so as to
require shoppers to make a detour towards shops. As Gottdiener
emphasises "the shops within the mall, as well as the mall itself,
constitutes the phenomenal form for the realisation of capital" (p.93).
The intertextuality of the mall and the contemporary culture of image
driven consumerism "structures the sign systems of the individual shops
as much as does the motif of the mall itself" (p.93). He juxtaposes the
"virtual" consumer self of the shopping mall with the continuing
impoverisation of the urban space outside the mall. More importantly
he identifies the constitution of meaning in the inter-relation between
the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes.
The same approach is pursued by the author in relation to the
meaning of Disneyland. Disneyland as a sign constitutes a system of
signification, but one that manifests itself in a socio-economic context.
At the level of the syntagmatic axis, meaning is generated by the relation
of Disneyland to the urban space of its Los Angeles surroundings. He
suggests that "we can compare Disneyland to what is left behind by
visitors-the urban/suburban region of Los Angeles which produces a
metonymical contrast or difference that is a source of meaning for the
experience of the park itself" (p. 104). Hence, the syntagmatic meaning
of Disneyland is articulated in the oppositions it establishes with the city
and residents of Los Angeles.
Meaning inside Disneyland is also "created by metaphorical or
paradigmatic relations and intertextuality" (p.111). The subspaces
inside Disneyland are unified by associative themes that draw upon the
Disney semantic field. Therefore, Adventureland is designed as a trip to
the "exotic" locations of the non-western "other", Frontierland is a trip
to the American past, and Tomorrowland is a trip to the world of
110 ROSHANDE SILVAWIJEYERATNE

science and technololgy. By deploying a socio-semiotic analysis,

Gottdiener then seeks to identify the underlying semantic field that these
associative themes draw upon.
The production of space inside Disneyland is therefore linked to the
space outside. Describing America as exemplifying a late capitalist stage
of development (and here the influence of Jameson and Harvey is clear)
the author links the spaces in Disneyland to the distinctive phases of
capital's development in America. At the connotative level, each space
becomes a metaphor. Adventureland connotes the period of European
colonialism, Frontierland connotes predatory capitalism and
Tomorrowland connotes state capitalism. At the level of metaphor
"Disneyland becomes the fantasy world of bourgeois ideology, a kind of
capitalist family album documenting the development of its different
personality manifestations in the United States" (p. 113).
At the same time, the author identifies how Disneyland drew upon
the semantic field of Walt Disney's personal background in small town
America. Hence Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland
reflect the "compartmentalised aspects of the world of a young boy
growing up in a midwestern town" (p. 114). Consequently the meaning
of Disneyland is constituted by the "juncture of two separate semantic
fields, one personal and the other specific to the social formation of late
capitalism which play themselves out in the constructed space of the
park" (p. 116). As with the shopping mall, the author identifies how
meaning in Disneyland is articulated in the inter-relationship between
the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes.
He goes onto present a similar method of analysis for contemporary
forms of"postmodern" architecture in America. Gottdiener argues that
the production of buildings involves a juxtaposition between the
instrumental logic of capitalism and the aesthetic practices of capitalist
production. Postmodern design practices create multiple meaning with
its emphasis on anti-modernism at the level of the syntagmatic axis and
with its design eccletism at the level of the paradigmatic axis. But for
Gottdiener, postmodernist architecture "remains a language of exchange
value with much the same language as in the past" (p. 130).
Part Three, utilises the socio-semiotic approach for an analysis of the
relationship between the producers, the objects of mass culture and their
users. Within this approach, the objects of mass culture, be it fashion or
popular music do not only possess sign value, but also use value as
determined by processes of social interaction. Gottdiener emphasises
 BOOK REVIEW:POSTMODERNSEMIOTICS 111

how the icons of popular culture are produced in a process inscribed in

the political and the economic. It is this process that "produces second
order and other connotative statuses of sign value" (p. 180).
Gottdiener provides the example of punk which articulated cultural
forms outside of the mainstream and incorporated them into the
subcultural expressions of punk. Punk "transformed the sign vehicles of
all aspects of youth subculture, including fashion, music, dance and
graphic design" (pp.182-83). His focus is on how the sign values of
advertising are attached to the use value of cultural objects, and how the
group use of objects and their transformed meanings are subsequently
altered by the mass culture industry. Industry, not only attaches sign
value to the use value of cultural objects in order to facilitate their sale,
but also further transforms their meanings once such objects are
appropriated for purposes of mass cultural production. Hence, he
identifies how these two stages of production "constitute a powerful
social practise by which the user/object relation is controlled for the
purpose of reproducing the social relations necessary to capitalist
production" (p. 185).
The text remains broadly located within a Marxist reading of the
postmodern, an approach associated with Jameson and Harvey 3 and the
emphasis on periodisation is also characteristic of this reading. It is this
very emphasis on periodising the postmodern that remains problematic.
For Lyotard, the tendency to periodise cultural history into moments of
premodernity, modernity, and postmodernity "leaves unquestioned the
position of the 'now', of the present from which one is supposed to be
able to achieve a legitimate perspective on a chronological succession". 4
Although on the one hand it is necessary to identify the difference
between the past and that which is yet to arrive in the future, by recourse
to a now, it is simultaneously impossible, Lyotard observes "to grasp any
such 'now' since, because it is dragged away by what we call the flow of
consciousness, the course of life, of things, of events ... it never stops
fading away. So that it is always both too soon and too late to grasp
anything like a 'now' in an identifiable way". 5 The moment of the now
therefore remains an excess, it exceeds the attempt to identify the object
or the thing itself. Consequently for Lyotard, neither modernity, nor

3 Supran.1
4 Supra n.1, at 24.
5 Ibidat 24-25 (Lyotard's emphasis).
112 ROSHANDE SILVAWIJEYERATNE

postmodernity "can be identified and defined as clearly circumscribed

historical entities, of which the latter would always come 'after' the
former". 6 Rather, for Lyotard, because the temporality of modernity is
comprised of the imperative to exceed itself into something other than
itself, "the postmodern is always implied in the modern". 7 For Lyotard
modernity is comprised of its postmodernity.
The demand for periodisation that Gottdiener makes is one that
therefore, remains the obsession of modernity. But by resisting
periodisation, we resist, according to Lyotard "the writing of that
supposed postmodernity", 8 except as a moment inscribed in modernity
itself.
While the failure to engage with Lyotard remains the central
weakness of the text, there are other minor problems such as the
tendency to lump together such diverse thinkers as Baudrillard and
Derrida. By doing so the author creates the impression that Baudrillard
is a deconstuctionist and that deconstruction dispatches the object to the
graveyard. Neither is true for while the image has replaced the object for
Baudrillard, for Derrida, diff6rance does not overcome the ontology of
presence, but rather interr6gates the "determination of Being as
presence.'9
In spite of this, the text will be of use to anyone working in the field
of media or communication studies. The socio-semiotic model oudined
by Gottdiener can be used by legal semioticians for an analysis of the
relation between the ideal and the material in the production of legal
discourse.

6 Ibidat 25.
7 Ibidat 25.
8 Ibid at 35.
9 J. Derrida, "Diff~rance", in J. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy (London:
Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1982), 21, translated by Alan Bass.